


quantum leaping.

by AlwaysInSonder



Series: Plance Anthology [12]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Kind of a rambly mess assfjhgfh ;-;, Multi, Post S8 angst turned sweetness, Role Reversal, plance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25069609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlwaysInSonder/pseuds/AlwaysInSonder
Summary: The man looks like Lance - his dark blue eyes, olive skin and brown hair - but she knows immediately it's definitely not Lance. At least, not the one she knows. Not-Lance's eyes widen to the size of saucers...underneath his prescription lenses. He pulls them off briefly, cleans them, and shoves them back on his nose. He stares at her like she's an alien.“Are you...Lance?”"I’m Lancelot but...only my friends call me Lance,” he adjusts his glasses, squinting at her. “And I don’t believe we’ve met...even if you look just like Pidge.”
Relationships: Lance/Pidge (Voltron), Lance/Pidge | Katie Holt, Side Heith - Relationship, past allurance - Relationship
Series: Plance Anthology [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1262111
Comments: 3
Kudos: 72





	quantum leaping.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [artemisarya](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=artemisarya).



> Dedicated to the marvelous miss artemisarya, who never fails to make my day with her gorgeous art!
> 
> Beta-d by RosieClark!

Her body is floating.

She strains herself, attempting to wriggle her toes and her fingers. 

All to no avail. 

The air is not too cold and not too warm. It's still, and she's briefly reminded of being suspended in space. 

There's a sound in the distance. It's familiar, but she can't quite place it. A soft hum - mildly ominous - but paradoxically calming, regular and consistent; like the waves from a neighbouring pulsar. She instinctively attempts reaching out her arm again, but is yet again reminded of her immobilized state.

She racks her brain. Is she dreaming? Moments ago, she was at her workstation, analysing new samples brought by the MFEs from a mysterious asteroid. All she remembers next is analysing the raw data for the samples...and resting her head while staring at an old photo of _him_ . The photo had the whole team, but her eyes could not - _would_ not - stray from his face. 

She remembers pressing her cheek against the cool steel of her workstation, with the intention to rest her eyes. But her mind couldn’t stop racing after receiving the sudden text from him that day.

_I miss you._

And then, she’s here; floating aimlessly in some sort of dark void. 

She supposes the manner with which she thinks of him is unhealthy. It’s nearing half a decade since he’s lost the love of his life. Two years since they shared a drunken kiss under a mistletoe and one year - in a moment of weakness - since she slept with him. She doubts she could - nor wants to, frankly - insert herself into his life and expect to fill the void. 

Least of all, when his love was a dear friend of hers as well. 

Her heart constricts at her memory ; her sky blue eyes and sweet smile. Not a day goes by that she does not regret spending more time with the heart of Voltron when she had the chance.

She feels something that reminds of a cool hand on her cheek - a phantasmic touch - and the tension in her body eases.

For a split second, she sees the familiar blue eyes and the same gentle gaze before her, but a blinding light floods her vision. She gasps as the air around her shifts. Her body is thrust forward and she tries her hardest to scream, the sounds coming out in an anguished whine in her constricted throat. Colors streak past her, blurring together like watercolor as her body hurtles in what feels like lightspeed. 

And then, it stops.

Her back slumps against what feels like a cool, metal floor. Her bones ache, and she groans as she finally feels control over her limbs. _Just a dream,_ she decides. _Must have fallen asleep on her workstation again._

"...Excuse me?" 

Pidge stills. A familiar voice.

She opens her eyes blearily, her eyes slowly focusing on her surroundings. She's in what appears to be a metal pod. Lights flash on the edges of the smooth, curved ceiling. Her eyes squint as she tries to make out where she is.

"Uh...ma'am? You can’t sleep here. I don’t know how you got in but-"

"Wha-what happened?" She winces as she props herself up, the throbbing in her bones returning. She's barely twenty-five, but she feels like her nonna, complaining of her aching old bones.

The silence makes her turn her head and it takes her a moment to react. 

“Lance?!”

The man _looks_ like Lance - his dark blue eyes, olive skin and brown hair - but she knows immediately it's definitely _not_ Lance. At least, not the one she knows. Not-Lance's eyes widen to the size of saucers...underneath his prescription lenses. He pulls them off briefly, cleans them, and shoves them back on his nose. He stares at her like she's an alien. 

“ _Are_ you...Lance?”

"I’m Lancelot but...only my friends call me Lance,” he adjusts his glasses, squinting at her. “And I don’t believe we’ve met...even if you look just like Pidge.” 

“What are you on about? I _am_ Pidge.” 

He pauses, his head tilting in curiosity. “Is your birth name Cadie too?” 

“Katie, yeah.”

Not-Lance, or Lancelot, blinks. He closes his eyes and inhales sharply, muttering things under her breath she can not catch. “Well. We’re in a pickle.”

Pidge frowns, noticing now that he's wearing a lab coat. The Lance she knows often steals her own - in a poor bid to flirt with her lab assistants - and her small coat would bunch around his broad shoulders awkwardly, but this coat is perfectly fitted to the man. As if it's his own. Underneath it, she sees a crisp, white shirt collar and a dark blue sweater. Not the Garrison fatigues nor the dark turtlenecks and leather jackets her Lance had recently taken to. Lancelot, much to her mild amusement, dresses alot like her father.

She pauses, her mind whirling. She has a vague idea of what had just happened to her, but she quickly dismisses the thought. It’s far too outlandish to even _consider_ ; even if a small voice in her head insists it to be the strongest hypothesis. She rarely ignores that voice but for the sake of her sanity, but she’s not quite ready to come to terms of what she has just - unintentionally - accomplished.

Pidge gulps, her voice cracking just a little as she addresses him. "So... _Lancelot_ , what are you doing in my lab?"

Lancelot’s apparent shock dissolves as he blinks at her question. A brow raises. " _Your_ lab?" He scoffs. "I believe you mean _my_ lab."

Her immediate thoughts go to some sort of elaborate prank, but her intuition nags at her otherwise. Lancelot turns his attention to a panel to the corner of the pod and fumbles with the controls. He mumbles things under his breath that are too soft for her to hear, but she's too distracted by the view beyond the pod's entrance.

She's in, what looks like at least, her lab, but it's markedly different. Her beloved workstation and the organised chaos that were her projects were gone and are replaced by a massive steel table. There's contraptions she's never seen in her life placed neatly in taped squares on the surface, and a holographic computer glows off to the corner displaying a screensaver of an unfamiliar emblem. Steel tools - some looking vaguely Altean with their Balmeran crystal power units - hung in an orderly fashion on the walls. Not quite the haphazard - but deliberate - fashion hers were arranged.

“Oh, _quiznack_.” Pidge rubs her temples. Sometimes, having a brain of a visionary can take its toll. Getting incredibly vivid lucid dreams is one such example.

“So, you’re absolutely sure you’ve not just wandered in here?” He’s looking her way now, scrutinising her like a specimen, stepping forward to block her view. “Are you that cousin Pidge despises so much?”

“I’m not a trespasser and I _am_ Pidge,” she huffs, attempting to push herself to stand on her legs. “And I don’t have a cousin- oof!” Her knees buckle and she nearly falls to a heap when arms catch her in the nick of time. 

Even if she knows with every fibre of her being that this man is not her long-time - _extremely_ juvenile - crush, it's no less mortifying how her body immediately responds to the touch. It does not help also, that their physiques are no different. The same broad chest and lean muscle she has felt against her own bare skin. It feels wrong to be attracted to him, but it's hard not to be.

“Are you usually this clumsy? My Pidge is rather athletic.” 

Pidge resists the urge to snort. Her and sports? Maybe she really is in an alternate reality. “No. I’m just...aching. Everywhere.”

Lancelot releases her from his arms, but keeps them ready should she fall again. She leans a hand against the pod walls, slouching against it with a sigh. The ache in her bones is unlike any other pain she’s had in her life. Bearable, but unusual. It’s as though she’s been stretched and pulled and then squashed back to her normal state. The voice in her head returns, bringing forth an answer for her situation, but she dismisses it yet again. 

“So...you’ve apparently manifested out of thin air… you have no bearings of where you are…” 

He leans forward, his face only inches away from hers as he carefully examines her eyes, searching for a sort of clue. She feels her cheeks warm and awkwardly turns her face away. Starkly different as they were, he still has the mesmerising dark blue eyes that makes her embarrassingly weak. 

“I have a question for you,” his voice has gone soft and Pidge looks up briefly to see that he’s pale. He swallows thickly and runs her hand through his hair, tousling his already messy locks her Lance would never be caught dead with. “Who is the President of Arus?”

Pidge blinks at the question. A knot tightens at her throat as she realizes she cannot run from reality - literally and figuratively - for much longer. After a long silence, she answers him honestly. “They don’t have one,” she exhales heavily. “It’s a monarchy. And, well, it’s kind of a mixed bag now since the colony Alteans are with them-”

Her answer makes him squeak and turn back to the console, frantically typing on the console. It’s odd to see the Lance-lookalike like this; able to code, interpret astrophysics equations and...do the things she does. 

She’s lying to herself if she didn’t find it a little arousing. 

Lancelot gives an exasperated sigh and scratches his head as he examines the raw data on the small screen. “It’s not even a working prototype! How could this have happened?!” 

Pidge is way past the stage of caring why or how she got here and she quickly realizes it’s because she’s still too stunned by the sight of a… _nerdy,_ genius Lance. 

Maybe she’s here for a reason. The longing within her that she aches to fill with her Lance...maybe she can find with this one.

Still leaning against the pod, she runs her fingers across the smooth, metal walls of it. Colorful lights blink underneath her fingertips as she marvels at the neat soldering that welded the panels almost seamlessly. Her mind drifts momentarily to her Lance; brow furrowing in concentration as he helps her weld the heavier parts of her creations. His jacket and shirt off, leaving him in just his tank top and jeans. A thin sheen of sweat coating his skin; his biceps straining as he lifted them on and off her workstation. His handiwork isn’t nearly as neat as Lancelot’s, but for the view from her workstation, his help is always much appreciated. 

She shakes her head to clear her mind and coughs awkwardly. She desperately hopes Lancelot isn’t telekinetic in this dimension. “So uh...what _is_ this thing?” 

Lancelot takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes tiredly. He turns to her solemnly, looking at her straight in the eye as he answers her. “A trans-reality transponder. It’s a-”

“Communications device that creates a channel between dimensions? Interesting.” Lancelot gapes at her. Pidge waves a hand dismissively, trying hard not to preen at Lancelot’s amazement. She shifts herself forward. "Can I have a look at the datapad?" 

He turns to her briefly with a raised brow and it makes her wonder if it's a habit she has herself. She knows she can get a tad condescending with Lance, but being on the receiving end for once, she realizes now it's not nearly as endearing as she thinks it is. "If you are well-versed in the matters of quantum physics, please, be my guest." He delivers it with a smirk. 

Oh, that irks her.

The challenge he poses gets her on her feet instantly and she's soon by his side, examining the console intently. The determined pinch between her brows smoothed as she realizes how eerily similar his calculations and code are to hers. She has only made sketches and done up equations, but she's never attempted in commencing construction. She never had the time.

“It looks like this is set-up for communications across dimensions...not for transporting beings.”

"Well, that was what I was trying to do," Lancelot frowns down at his data pad. “I never intended for transport. Interdimensional travel is supposed to be im-”

“Impossible,” she finishes the sentence for him. 

"This is...this is...." Lance blinks rapidly, looking from his notes, to around the pod in marvel. "This is _incredible_!"

"I don't think it is," Pidge frowns as she reads through trial reports. "Sorry to disappoint, but it says here your pod hasn't been charged in the last week. It’s definitely not the pod that brought me here."

"No! Don't you see?" He grabs her shoulders suddenly, nearly bursting with excitement. "You're part of something once thought _impossible_. You've travelled in the speed of light with no protective armour and are still in one piece! You've...crossed dimensions like, like-"

"Magic?" Now, she can't help but smirk. It _is_ incredible, but she's more convinced it's another one of her weird dreams. The typical setting in these things involved Lance in swimming trunks or If it goes as it usually does, Lance and her would be semi-naked now.

But _this_ Lance - Lancelot, not a name she finds particularly alluring - is way beyond the bounds of her imagination. It’s Lance’s body, with her personality. She’s not sure if she’s confusing her amazement with arousal.

Instead of dwelling on that disturbing thought any further, she occupies herself with recalculating his parameters and checking through his code line-by-line; relieved that it’s written in Altean code script. She's aware he's giving her stares when he thinks she's not paying attention, but it still makes her startle when the still silence makes her turn to him and he's staring at her slack-jawed.

"Are you gonna make fun of me for double modulating?" she laughs nervously, hoping to dispel the awkward tension.

Lancelot, to her relief, chuckles and shakes his head. “Who _doesn’t_ double modulate? What are they? Animals?” She finds herself laughing in surprise. Of course he will say that. He is in some ways, _her_. “It’s just...my Pidge? She hates math. Anything to do with science, really.”

It’s Pidge’s turn to gawk at him. “You cannot be serious.”

He chuckles and there’s an affectionate glint in his eyes that makes her melt. “I mean, she’s good at it. Did the bare minimum to get-by at the Academy, but she’s too impatient. She’s kind of an adrenaline junkie.”

There’s a stab of envy in her heart. The way he speaks of Pidge - so laden with tenderness - makes her remember how she speaks of Lance in front of Nadia. She supposes it’s the fate of nerds to quietly pine after their jocks. 

Maybe it doesn’t have to be that way. A fellow nerd could be just what she needs in her life. He grins widely at her and she feels the same flips in her belly when Lance does it and she blushes, a small smile playing on her lips.

Lancelot shakes his head. “But that’s what you get for dating a fighter pilot.”

And her smile drops.  
  


* * *

“So...you’re telling me I’m a... _jock_ in your dimension?” Lancelot’s face twists with disgust. “I mean, I don’t mind a bit of swimming, but only to keep in shape. Besides, it helps me ruminate when I’m in a rut.” 

Pidge gives a stiff nod, still unable to meet his eyes. She busies her hands with typing up lines and lines of code she _knows_ will not magically transform a machine ill-equipped to tear apart the fabric of reality and throw her back to hers in the precise time and condition she left it, but it’s worth a shot and she is desperate need for an outlet for her jittery self. 

“Say, if I’m a jock in your universe...am I more…” Lancelot clears his throat and makes the motion of flexing his muscles. 

“I’d say you’re about the same,” Pidge mumbles under her breath, her face growing quickly warm. “But you two certainly dress differently.” 

“Oh! Really-”

“ _Babe!_ ”

A shiver travels down Pidge’s spine as a voice - _her_ voice - comes up behind her. She allows herself a minute to compose herself, readying her mind for what she’s about to see. 

When she finally turns her head, her eyes go straight to her hair. It’s messy - not her six-straight-hours-of-debugging messy - but it’s the effortlessly tousled kind that somehow still falls _just so_. Bangs frame eyes scarily like hers in a way she’s sure goes against dress code. There’s a frown fixed on her alternate’s mouth; she even frowns like she does, brows pinched together and lips tilted to one side.

And then she notices her clothes. 

She’s wearing a light green jacket, almost the same jacket her Lance wears, but cropped to her midriff and paired with skin-tight jeans Pidge swears would cut off circulation to her legs.

She looks effortlessly good - with the attitude to match - in a way Pidge can only dream of replicating.

Her doppelganger appraises her as if she's a museum exhibit and Pidge finds herself squirming underneath her gaze. It's a strange feeling to be intimidated by her own likeness. She closes the distance between them slowly and Pidge doesn’t know why her heart picks up in pace. Her alt stops right before her nose, squinting and peering into her eyes.

"Babe, it's totally hot that you cloned me. But if you wanted a threesome I would have figured you'd _ask_ first-"

"That is _not_ what this is," Lancelot's face immediately flushes a deep red. He adjusts his glasses and gestures to her. "Pidge, _my_ Pidge, meet...also Pidge." 

Pidge gives a stiff nod as the other her appraises her again, this time with confusion. “Whaddya mean? She’s _not_ a clone?”

“Not at all.”

Her alt frowns, looking back to her boyfriend and again to her. “Is this some weird nerd movie reference I don’t know? Sounds like that one with Luke Skywalker and that flying telephone box thingy.” 

Other Pidge pinches her cheek, stretching it experimentally. Pidge winces, attempting to swat away her alt’s hand and in a low voice intones, “no, I’m not an android either. I’ve...somehow been transported through space-time to this dimension. Theoretically, impossible. But, theories _are_ just the best, quantifiable explanation known in real time, derived from the scientific method.” 

Her hand flies back in shock and now she stares at her, eyes nearly bulging out. "She's like me...but dorkier." 

" _Hey_!"

"She's from an alternate universe!" Lancelot quickly interjects. "One where...you're the genius of Voltron." He laughs at that, almost as if he can't believe his own words. Pidge resists the urge to roll her eyes.

Pidge has the sudden urge to tell him of her Lance’s sometimes-blatant idiocy - which she finds cute, most of the time - that drives her crazy, but she sighs and bites her tongue. It’s probably not wise to insult the only man who could help her return to her home. Her attraction to him has already waned almost immediately. Her Lance is way more sensitive.

"Do I have competition?" Other Pidge turns to him again, her eyes narrowing. "Because you know I will go full-on gladiator on this bitch for you."

"Absolutely not." He clears his throat as he walks towards her and awkwardly, but tenderly, touches her cheek. The delicateness of the gesture makes her heart clench with want. "Also, I'd never clone you. There can only be one of you."

Her twin melts and pulls him down by his starched collar to plant a noisy, wet kiss on him. 

Pidge can only watch in mute shock at the display. It’s as if she’s watching her fantasies play out in front of her in some hyper-realistic, virtual reality cinema, only it makes her desperately wish for the cold grips of death.

She’s sickeningly jealous.

Lancelot unfreezes after a few moments and wraps his arms around his girlfriend to return the kiss, but it's obvious who still has the reins. He’s gasping for air by the time she pushes him back, eyes hooded and fixed entirely on her as if she’s put a spell on him.

Her finger trails down his chest as her voice drops to a sultry tone. "You get to have _whatever_ you want tonight."

Pidge awkwardly averts her gaze to the floor, realizing too late that she's been gawking at them the entire time. Discreetly, she pinches herself, still grasping at a small shred of hope that it’s all just a lucid dream gone way out of control.   
  


* * *

Her head is throbbing now and she doesn’t know if it’s from her mind imploding from the impossibility of the situation she’s in, or as a side effect of trans-reality travel. 

Lancelot has disappeared to retrieve a blood work kit for her. Not after a full fifteen minutes of begging for his girlfriend’s forgiveness for having to cancel a date and a promise to make things up to her that her counterpart agrees to way too eagerly. And after a few minutes of awkward exchanges about themselves, her alt finally leaves as well, promising to return with snacks. 

So far, Pidge has learnt that their universe’s Voltron does not function all that different and even looks exactly the same. Alteans, were another commonality in both their universes. Only, they have lived alongside humans for thousands of years. It serves to explain the Altean-esque technology she’d seen on his walls.

She’s _also_ learnt that she’s an only child and that her parents were divorced. It’s the thing that disturbs her the most. She couldn’t imagine her life without Matt or her loving parents apart. 

Oh, and she’s not Katie, but _Cadie_. She’s had enough bizarreness for one day and she hopes it’s the last of it. 

"Here, Keith baked cookies." Cadie returns, a plate of cling wrapped cookies and a post-it affixed to the top. Cursive handwriting reads: ‘To my wonderful boyfriend’. Well, Pidge stands corrected.

It makes her pause, but accepts the small plate offered to her and nibbles on a cookie glumly. At this point, Pidge doesn’t question anything. 

But as soon as the melty goodness of milk chocolate and salty peanut butter hits her tongue, she moans and closes. The chocolate-peanut butter mix oozes and sticks to her fingers and she licks it off eagerly. Pidge sinks back to the chair, eagerly polishing off the rest.

Finally, a sense of normalcy. Peanut butter cookies. The chocolate, she could do without, but it’s not unwelcome. It helps with the shock she’s too numb to feel.

“I know, they’re _that_ good,” Cadie laughs, shoving aside some of the carefully placed projects on her boyfriend’s desk to prop herself on the edge. She folds her legs underneath her and Pidge resists the urge to nag at her to get off her “workstation” - just as she usually does to her Lance. "Keith makes them when Hunk gets moody. Works like a charm."

"You mean _Hunk_ is the emo?!"

“Well... _emo_ , whatever that is, seems like an oversimplified way to describe him. He just has a lot going on, y’know? He walks around like he has some sort of preordained fate like some kinda anime protagonist.” Cadie shakes her head, taking a large bite of a cookie to ruminate with. “I guess he kinda does. Right hand of Voltron and all.” 

“Okay, whoa.” Pidge sits up then. It hadn’t even occurred that they’d have different lions in another universe. “So, I’m guessing you’re...Blue?”

“Yup,” she affirms proudly, twirling a strand of her hair on her finger. “I was the first to find her after all.”

“And Yellow?”

“Keith. He’s the sweetheart that keeps the group together,” she says as chews thoughtfully. A finger raising to add a fact. “Also, dating Hunk!” Pidge’s jaw drops and Cadie laughs. “I know! But I mean, look at me and Lance. We’re polar opposites too. Who am I to judge?”

“And...Green is Lance.” Pidge waits for Cadie to nod before continuing. “So...who’s the Head?”

Cadie blinks. “Allura, duh. She built the dang thing! She’s the Head _and_ the Heart.”

Her sudden silence doesn’t go unnoticed by her alt. She sets her half-eaten cookie down, the sweet treat suddenly making her sick. 

Cadie leans forward in concern. “Hey...what’s wrong?”

“It’s...nothing.” 

Cadie frowns - _precisely_ the way her Lance frowns now when he knows she’s lying about her emotions - and Pidge bites her lip. Knowing Lance and quickly-now, Cadie, there’s no getting out of this one. 

“Allura...Our Allura...she sacrificed herself. She’s...gone. Or, well… one with the universe, _all_ universes really.”  
  
It’s at that moment Pidge realizes that she’s never said the fact out loud before. It never needed to be said. Virtually everyone in the universe - her universe at least - knows of the Altean Princess who’d sacrificed herself to save all worlds, the fabric of time and reality as they knew it. It makes her bitter just the slightest that their universe will never know how their Allura had saved them too. 

Arms close around her, and Pidge doesn’t fight it. Cadie hugs just like her mother. 

“I can’t even imagine,” Cadie shakes her head after she pulls away. Her demeanour notedly subdued. “Voltron’s nothing without her.”

Pidge gives a sombre nod. 

A hand gently brushes over her own. “Hey, let’s talk about something else, okay? Tell me everything about your Lancelot! Is he as sweet to you as mine is?”

Pidge winces and her alt looks at her in shock, her skin paling. Pidge quickly shakes her head. “No, no. He’s alive. Don’t worry. We- um, well. We aren’t dating.”

“Oh.” Cadie blinks. Her second “oh” is more defeated as she turns her gaze to the floor. 

“He...he’s definitely sweet. He’s a wonderful best friend…” she trails off, struggling to keep herself in check. It isn’t right of her to pine after him, even after all these years.

“But?”

“But...we’re just not it.” She feels guilty for even pining after him. “He hasn’t been himself since...she left us. He really loved her.” 

“Oh...honey,” a hand gently tilts her chin up. “ _You_ love him, don’t you?” 

Pidge flushes as Cadie gives her a knowing look. “H-how?”

“It’s written all over your face.” She says, while idly tracing the light scars over her hand, Cadie’s hand is nowhere near roughened as hers. “My Lance pined after me...I know it sounds real douchey to say out loud but...truthfully? I kind of knew.” 

Anger flares within her and it catches her by surprise, but she does well in disguising it. She focuses instead on the blueprints - called greenprints in their world - for Lancelot’s transponder pod. 

“But...I didn’t want to believe it,” she continues softly, her voice nearing her own now. “It’s just...we’ve been best friends for so long and...well, he’s always been super smart, I figured a dumb jock girl would just bore him. It took us years but us dumb kids finally found each other.” 

The anger extinguishes, but it’s no less frustrating. Even if she knows they’ve overcome that and are very much together and in love, knowing that someone would just assume a thing like that and leave them wondering for years on years if they ever could have a chance-

"I always did think he was kind of cute…" Cadie giggles. "When he wears that lab coat and frowns 'cause he's thinking so hard…and with those glasses?” She fans herself and the last of the anger leaves Pidge’s head. “Or when he fixes up the Castle in a tank top with his biceps out...it just makes me feel a type of way, y'know?" 

Pidge does know it. Very well, in fact. Maybe they weren’t all that different.

“And, well. We _were_ dating other people. Allura was the one who had to point out to me that I should go to him.” 

Pidge is surprised, but she reasons it’s not that outlandish. Of course Allura would put others before herself. Even in another dimension. “Allura broke up with Lance?”

"Well, Allura's _my_ ex." Cadie shrugs and smiles as she gapes at her. "She fell into my arms when we first met. We dated for a bit and just thought we were better off as friends. She’s happier now anyway.” 

"Oh. Oh wow." Pain catches her chest with the last sentence and she finds herself gulping discreetly to ease it. It only reinforces the guilt. It’s selfish of her to pine after Allura’s lover.

"She's engaged to a Galran Princess. Lotus! They're cute. Almost like a fairytale." It takes her a moment, but of course, Cadie has her Lance’s intuition. "Hey, you okay?"

Pidge offers a weak nod. "Just...just relieved Allura's happier here. As she should be." She bows her head, as fresh tears prick the corners of her eyes

"Oh...oh man. I'm so sorry." Cadie looks distressed now; the cool, confident girl gone and now replaced with a gentle, empathic figure. She truly was like Lance. “Look, how about we stop talking about this dimension stuff. I think I’m making it worse.”

“No- No, it’s okay.” Pidge shakes her head. “It’s true, I lo- like Lance. How can I not?” 

Cadie nods in understanding, scooching closer to her. 

“But it’s still...wrong.”

“Why would it be wrong?”

“Because... _because_ ,” she pinches the bridge of her nose, sighing heavily. “He loves her. I can’t just...walk into his life. I can’t do that to him. I can’t do that to _her_.” 

Cadie takes this in quietly, her presence calming more than agitating like before. Lance too, warms up to people just as quickly. 

“And...it’s just selfish. I feel like I’m pouncing on someone-”

“Did he tell you that?”

The question throws Pidge off, but she shakes her head. 

“Then...does he avoid you? Is he uncomfortable around you?”

She thinks of the times he lingers in her labs, asking if she needs help with anything and bugging her to go to lunch with him. She knows his prolonged disappearance and their... _trysts_ in between play a part in her discomfort, and she still feels guilt with every heart flutter, but if anyone was avoiding anyone, it was her. “No…” Her response comes as a hushed whisper.

“Well,” Cadie begins gently. “When we broke up, my Allura told me she was doing it out of love. For me. For Lancelot. I think... your Allura wouldn’t be any different.” She pushes herself off the table to kneel next to her. “It didn’t occur to me before...but now, I think I know why you’re here.”

Pidge stares down at her hands. The faint scars from being absolutely clumsy with the soldering tool stands out to her now. Of why Lance lingers so worriedly around her, offering to do work for her. Soldering for her. 

Cadie inspects her face carefully and nudges her. “And I think you already know the answer to your dilemma.” 

* * *

Lance scrambles back to his lab, the blood work kit in his arms. James, a fellow nerd but an absolute adversary especially since he’d begun dating Pidge, had gone out of his way to give him a hard time checking out the equipment. 

“Pidge! And uh- Pidge! I’m back.”

“You’re too late babe, she left a while ago.”

He nearly drops the kit in shock. “ _Left_?! You just let her walk away?”

“Uh, no?” His Pidge props her legs up on his immaculate desk, his projects in a disarray and he resists the urge to cry. He’d painstakingly arranged it so they were perfectly parallel _and_ perpendicular. “I turned around for a moment and she just...disappeared.” She shrugs.

Lancelot inhales deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose. As much as he loves this woman with every fibre of his being, she does drive him mad. “Left, like...back to her home?’

“Yup.” She pops her lips on the plosive, giving him a sultry smile.

“How are you so sure?” Lancelot lifts a brow. “You know that I’d never leave you for her.” 

“I don’t get jealous,” Cadie rolls her eyes. “But really Lance, she’s back home safe. I just... _know_ it. Call it my intuition.” She jumps from the chair eagerly, her hips swaying as she walks towards him. “Now...does this mean we can go on our date?”

He’s not the most eager to go cliff diving off of Arusian craters, but when she’s looking at him in _that_ way he knows he stands no chance. “Not until you’re telling me how you’ve solved the paradox of interdimensional travel.”

“Of course,” she winds her arms around his neck, tiptoeing to press a kiss to his lips. “But then I’d be the smart one.” She giggles as it’s his turn to roll his eyes, allowing her to plant more kisses over his lips and down his neck.

He’s disappointed, for certain. He would have loved to document this for his studies. But he doesn’t doubt his girlfriend or her intuition. 

“Hey Pidge...do you think you’d have dated me if I was jock?” 

“Ew, no way.”

* * *

Her time suspended in the fabric of reality is shorter this time, she notes. She’s taking mental notes in her head of her experience, eager to get to studying it as soon as she lands back on her beloved workstation. 

But when she wakes, it’s not to a puddle of drool and half of her face red from sleeping on her table. Instead, she’s in a bed.

She hears a steady beat of her heart and it slowly melts away to the soft beeps of a heart monitor. Her brows furrow as she feels a prick on her left hand. The other is weighted down by something warm...and familiar. Calloused and perfectly shaped around her hand. 

"Pidge? Pidge!"

The warmth closes her fingers. It’s a hand. _Lance’s_ hand.

She groans as the ache in her bones returns with greater fervour. The side effects weren’t a joke. She definitely needs an extensive study on that.

“Are you hurt? What’s wrong? Should I call a doc-”

“Lance, shut up.” 

It’s Keith's voice. _Her_ Keith, she’s certain. It’s as coarse as she affectionately remembers.

“I’m gonna go get the nurse.” It’s the dear mother-hen, Hunk. It’s relieving to know she’s back where she’s supposed to be.

“I’ll call Shiro and her family,” Keith speaks again and she hears footsteps and a door closing shut. 

She attempts opening her eyes and winces as blinding sunlight shines into her eyes. Lance scrambles up, and she squints to see him close the curtains. “I kept them open but it was so depressingly dark,” he began sheepishly. “Like you were...um-” His gaze drops and is solemn for a moment, but he shakes his head as if to rid the thought. “You had me really worried there,” Lance chuckles nervously, pulling back to look into her eyes. “You can’t do that to me. Not ever.”

“What...happened? Why am I here?” She frowns around her room, not understanding how she wasn’t back in her lab.

“You collapsed… apparently from exhaustion.” Lance sighs, frowning momentarily. “I knew I should have come by to-”

Pidge doesn’t hear the rest of his sentence as confusion floods her. So...it _was_ a dream? 

Lance continues to talk - or lecture her, she supposes - but she’s too numb to make it out.

“I’m sorry…” she begins softly, a tear escaping her eye. 

Lance stops mid-sentence, startled to see her cry. A soft look immediately comes over his features. It’s the same gentle look Lancelot - well, at least the figment of her imagination - gives to Cadie. Full of a patient love and understanding. That had to be a pure-Lance trait.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to apologize...I- _We_ were just worried about you. You flat-lined several times and it just...scared the crap out of me.” 

He squeezes her hand and Pidge lifts her other hand from underneath her blanket, to rest over his, but pauses and stares at it.

“What’s wrong?” 

“Uh...nothing,” she quickly hides her hand back, her mind yet again, whirling. He didn’t need to see the chocolate and peanut butter streaks on her fingers. “Hey Lance?”

“Yeah?”

She takes in a shaky breath, mustering the courage of Cadie. “I...I think, um, we need to go out.” She’s sure she is red as tomatoes. “Together. On a...date.”

His silence makes her heart sink, but his hand is squeezing hers again. She dares a peek in his direction and finds a wide grin. She doesn’t know how she hasn’t noticed it before, but there’s a spark to his dark blue eyes once more. Just as it was in their younger days.

“I’d _love_ to,” Lance agrees with what sounds like relieved laughter. “Quiznack, there’s so much I need to talk about with you.”

The seriousness with which he says it warms her cheeks. 

His smile, his touch, his eyes and his laugh - they all match some other Lance. But as far as Pidge is concerned, he's the only Lance that matters.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, Allura was the one that brought Pidge to the alternate dimension. I might have been too subtle with that but I didn't want it to be too obvious. 
> 
> Please do let me know your thoughts/reactions, they're always appreciated and loved! ^^


End file.
